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This is Wura-Natasha Ogunji’s first time in Nigeria. Her love for the motherland has brought her back to show her works as a performance artist. Apart from the performance pieces, she also creates a unique type of artwork were she draws on architectural paper and sews threads in before painting on them, thereby creating a three-dimensional piece. She will be using the Nigerian space for her performances during a three-week stay and the artist of 20 years hopes to make more visits to this country. She talks to NEXT about her plans.

A voice in the world

When I was three or four, my mum always encouraged creativity, so my earliest memories were of drawing from a very young age. I started out as a photographer; it was after college that I decided to be an artist. I always felt that my brothers were the ones that would paint and draw, I never saw myself primarily as an artist, although I knew that I was creative. It was a year or two after college that I decided to be an artist, to put my voice out in the world. I studied Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology that was about Africa and African American culture, Mexican American culture and art. I was interested in mask making and the ceremonies surrounding them. In my photography, I was taking portraits of people, from there, I decided to study Photography in Grad school and from there I started performance art. When I was in Grad school, I made a performance piece on this raised structure, the vision for this piece came in a dream and I felt like it came out from a knowledge that we hold in our bodies. Ancestral knowledge, cellular memory, muscle memory that holds the information.

Stitched drawings

I have always had a love for thread. My mother taught us to sew when we were little so I really liked that. I have never been a person who made all my clothes or anything like that, but I was really interested in sewing. It is just my basic love for stitching and the use of thread. At some point, after I started performance art, my sister had stitched some words into a T-shirt and I said: ‘I think I want to do that on paper’. So, I started sewing on paper. From there I took my first drawing class which was only about five years ago; it was something that terrified me but I absolutely loved. For me, the line on the paper is very similar to my performance art as they both involve mark-making, because it involves leaving a trace of my existence in the world; it is very similar to that trace I leave on paper. In creating my work, I try to strike a balance between having a plan and being open and see where the work is taking me. All I do is let the work speak for me as I become a vessel to the process. When I work, I start with the drawings but the most successful pieces are the ones where I have stitched part of the work and left the rest open, because it is left open people feel it is incomplete but it offers an experience that engages people.

Body of works

A lot of the work I am doing right now started with the question I had when I was in Grad school. I was taking a photography class and I was told that there were no images of people [of] colour. So, when I asked my professor about it, he said that they just did not exist. I know that we exist, so thought: ‘how can I find these images or conjure up photographs’? I began to think of the knowledge I could ask from my body. I did not grow up with my father, he was in Nigeria. I was doing something in my work that had to do with Yoruba ceremonies and people were asking me how I knew these things. I told them that it was just coming to me. So you see, I had started to connect with my body and this ability to know information – visual information from that knowledge that first starts with making observations while on the streets about how do I use my body to make a mark in the earth? How do I make a memory in a place that I have been to or an answer to a question?

For me recently, the questions were: Does the motherland long for us? Does homeland come searching for us? In the Americas, black people think that they can always go back to where they originate from, but I was thinking that maybe there is something in America that is important to my homeland of Nigeria. Then I started envisioning the Ife head crossing the water. I began to wonder how that will feel like. That led me to the work that I am working on right now. When I first came to Nigeria, in Abuja, I was going around the market, I decided to make a performance piece so that people will know that I have been here. The first performance I made was in my cousin’s front yard. I dug deep into the earth and then swept it away, trying to make a permanent mark there. The other place I used is my father’s house, I have never met my father. I went to his partially completed house; it was about me trying to make the home remember me, by crawling up the wall or up a window or curtain, trying to leave a physical memory.

Performance opening

I am surprised and shocked, when Jelili (Atiku) told me that he was the only one who was a full time performance artist (in Nigeria). I saw it as an opening for my work. It is kind of amazing to be in a place at the beginning of something. I feel that performance art is a natural form for people in Africa because we already have ceremonies that require performance. I think it is an exciting time to be here and I am thrilled. I want to observe and take in the images. I know that the first eye that you arrive with is important because everything is new. I am really excited about making works here, my work is about connecting to the motherland, to Nigerians, and Nigerians in the Diaspora. I want to do performance art here and leave that visual impression for people. I would like to start an institution for Performance art here with other people and organisations where we will be showing performance and teaching performance while acting as a resource centre for people.

Working from within

I believe that when we are true and honest with ourselves in whatever we produce for people, the truthfulness and integrity in the work will show. I think my first responsibility in this world is to find my path and as an artist, to try to do what I can to make sure that my voice is the clearest and most critical it could be. It is more important to make something for the integrity of the work, because I think people connect with it on an intimate and personal level. So, I can talk about the fact that I am Nigerian or that I have never met my father; or that I have an intimate relationship with the spirit world because I am able to relate with a place I have never been to in my art. There has to be an exchange between the artist and the audience. You need the energy of the audience and they need your energy, so that they can reach that level were they stop in awe because they understand what you’re trying to say. This is very intimate for me.

To Nigeria with love

It has been amazing for me being here in Nigeria, and one of the most important things is that feeling that this is the place. I want to come back to live here, so this idea of coming to a place and then going back only to forget can’t happen to me. This is a place I want to return to, not as a visitor but as someone who lives here and wants to return here.